Puma Wants to Sprint in Olympics Brand Race Against Nike and Adidas

Puma wants to be known as the “fastest” sports brand in the world, and it’s hoping that the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris will help it cement that status.

The German sportswear company unveiled its first global brand campaign in a decade, “Forever Faster,” highlighting its performance prowess and targeting everyone from athletes to your regular neighborhood jogger.

“We’ve been using ‘Forever Faster’ as our mantra since around 2014, but we’ve never used it as a communication tool,” Puma’s global brand and marketing director, Richard Teyssier, told ADWEEK.  

Now the tagline is at the center of Puma’s priciest-ever marketing push, which demonstrates how speed has been in the brand’s DNA since the 1948 launch of its first soccer boot (“The Atom”), designed by founder Rudolf Dassler so that players could be quick and nimble on the pitch.

With “Forever Faster,” the business is moving away from category marketing across sports like football, running and basketball to adopt a single “emotional and distinctive” message, said Teyssier.

Puma in Paris

The campaign, developed by agency Matte out of New York, will run across social media, TV, public relations, out-of-home and at points of sale globally. At its heart is a high-octane hero ad and supporting creative shots featuring top athletes, including soccer stars Luis Suárez and Jack Grealish, as well as basketball forward Breanna Stewart and Olympic sprinter Shericka Jackson.

Dedicated iterations will run across major sporting events through 2025, including the Copa América and UEFA Euro 2024 soccer tournaments and the Paris Olympics.

“The best way for us to [be present at the big events] is to be on athletes’ feet,” said Teyssier. “We’re doing that with increasing visibility year on year.”

In 2024, the brand’s logo will be emblazoned on the uniforms of Jamaica’s Olympics team, home to some of the world’s best sprinters like Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah.

This sponsorship, combined with how the brand activates its “Forever Faster” messaging around the Summer Games, will play a crucial role in helping Puma as it looks to carve out a space in an increasingly competitive running and lifestyle market.

Historically, it’s been a minefield for non-sponsors like Puma to activate around the Games. Adidas has been given plenty of freedom by the International Olympic Committee as its official sportswear partner for over 40 years, while Nike has gone for gold with its own unique brand of ambush marketing.

In 2024, though, organizers plan to relax rules and allow brands to celebrate their Olympic athletes’ medal wins on social media, and Teyssier said Puma has a reactive social team ready to take advantage of this. Their job will be to create content and “enhance” it using artificial intelligence, although the marketer could not yet elaborate on the specifics of that.

During the event, Puma House in Paris’ city center will host brand activations and events. It will also create a “Little Jamaica” at its Puma Yard space in London, where up to 500 fans can attend free screening parties for the entirety of the Games.

With 15.3 million spectators on the ground in Paris and 4 billion viewers expected to tune into broadcasts globally, Puma has a huge opportunity to drive both awareness and sales.

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“Forever Faster” has some heavy lifting to do at Paris 2024 and beyond, because along with Adidas and Nike, Puma has seen demand weaken as customers battle inflation and cut spending on non-essential goods. The business expects a weak first half of the year, forecasting mid-single-digit-percentage sales growth.

Teyssier hopes the Olympics activations in particular will have a “halo effect” on the Puma brand, helping it shift shoes, jackets and everything in between.

“The KPIs (key performance indicators) we are looking at globally range from brand awareness to purchase intent,” he said. “The key two are driving top of mind [awareness] and brand consideration, because when you create value in the mind of the consumer, that drives sales.”